


You Move Me

by JulyStorms



Series: Though the Stars Walk Backward [4]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6327649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is the only one whose focus has been shaken. And by what? A smile. It’s no great or miraculous event. But it feels like one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Move Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cellorocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellorocket/gifts).



> Prompted on Tumblr: Ginaka + Smile. Title comes from the song [You Move Me](https://youtu.be/FCqtEJXsFgs). Please give it a listen!

He sees Tsunemori’s smile from his workstation. It’s a genuine one this time, soft and quiet and personal, somehow. It doesn’t last, but he watches it until it disappears, until her lips flatten into a thin line and her eyes become steel, until her fingers find the keyboard in front of her and she looks again as he has come to expect her to: tired yet resolved to do some good in the world.

Ginoza loves her for her determination and so forgets to return his gaze to his own screen. The noise of the office seeps into him slowly, urging him back toward his waiting work. There are reports to file, e-mails to send, batches of analyzed data to go over...and yet he can’t find the willpower to do any of it.

Kunizuka’s nails tap out a rhythm on her desk as she hums softly under her breath. Tsunemori chews on her lower lip and nods a little to herself as she manages her files. 

He is the only one whose focus has been shaken. And by what? A smile. It’s no great or miraculous event.

But it feels like one.

Anyone else would find it odd that he should consider such things, yet it seems logical to him.

Ginoza was a different man two years ago. People say it all the time, and he doesn’t mind because it’s true. Things are different now than they were when his new junior inspector approached him completely unprepared for the rain or the toll her new job would take on her. He had been little more than a boarded-up house, then. Now he feels a lot of things that itch in his veins and pull at his heart and make him wonder why he spent most of his adult life shutting people out.

It’s bigger than Tsunemori, of course; it goes back much further than her time in his life. Yet somehow she is at the centre of it all, burning bright--some kind of metaphor for a brighter future, he’s sure. He thinks it against his better judgment; it’s not like the Ginoza of two years ago to mix hope and work. They’ve always been, in his mind, two very separate things. It’s hard to reconcile who he used to be with who he is. 

The fingers of his right hand curl slightly. 

_You are not that man anymore,_ he reminds himself. It’s a constant, purposeful reminder. Perhaps he should write it down, because it has proven such a difficult thing to remember. Maybe seeing sticky notes on his workstation monitor would do him some good. Maybe it would be soothing, when he’s startled by the light glinting off of his prosthetic arm, to see those words scrawled on his mirror in dry-erase marker.

He misses Tsunemori’s smile seconds after it’s gone. They’ve become rare, lately, but the Ginoza of two years ago had predicted as much, had known the industry would take from his idealistic junior inspector every blessed thing it could. He’s partially to blame for it. Two years ago he was as much a part of the industry as anything. He can’t pretend he didn’t contribute to her stacking losses and the pain he sees in her eyes, sometimes, when she thinks he’s not looking.

He would like to believe that if he could do everything over again, he’d do it all differently. He would be better to everyone--even himself.  But there are no such thing as do-overs in the real world. So Ginoza is left with the knowledge that he is partly to blame. He wonders if some small part of her resents him for her sleepless nights, the weight on her shoulders, the stench of cigarette smoke in her clothes. 

Two years ago she wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, but two years is a long time, and Ginoza isn’t the only one who has changed.

Tsunemori catches him staring. She’s gotten good at that. Guilt that ought to pool in his chest runs instead, like oil, down his missing arm.

She tilts her head as if to ask him for an explanation, expression gentle.

He looks away, forces his fingers to uncurl. The fake arm obeys instantly. The real one hesitates. 

All of this over-thinking is making him useless. The least he can do for her now is his best. She never asks for more. He shouldn’t wonder if she hates him sometimes. His therapist would say that it’s just his anxiety speaking, and if he’s going to dwell on anything it ought to be the positives.

He keeps a list of those. Half the entries mention Tsunemori. She’s done more good in his life than she’ll ever realize. Doesn’t it make sense, then, for him to feel moved by something as small as a smile, if it comes from her?

The flashing red of a new message in the corner of his screen interrupts his distracted thoughts. He clicks on it, the action almost automatic. Even two years later he feels the familiar drop in his stomach at the idea that the message might be from Chief Kasei asking to see him.

But the photo ID that pops up with the message belongs to Tsunemori. Her message is simple:

_Is everything okay, Ginoza-san?_

He doesn’t hesitate, and he’s sure it’s no lie: _Yes._


End file.
